🔗 Share this article

Based on information released by Israel, a minimum of 98 Palestinians have died while in custody since October 2023. A human rights group operating from Israel has reported that the true figure is almost certainly significantly larger, because of hundreds of unaccounted for individuals from Gaza.

Report Findings

An updated study recorded casualties attributed to brutality, lack of healthcare, and inadequate nutrition. Investigators used freedom of information requests, forensic reports, and testimonies with legal representatives, advocates, family members, and eyewitnesses.

Israeli authorities released complete information only for the first eight months of the war. Throughout these months, government statistics indicate an record casualty rate among detained Palestinians, equating to a single fatality every four days.

Updated Statistics

Israeli defense forces most recently revised data on custodial deaths for May 2024, and detention administration during September 2024. Investigators documented a further 35 fatalities in custody following these periods and validated them with official sources.

Despite the total number of fatalities charted being substantially larger than previous assessments, it likely fails to capture the entire scope of Palestinian loss, per the director of the detainee affairs unit.

“Although we are providing evidence for a larger total of fatalities than earlier indicated, this is not a full picture,” he stated. “We are confident that there are still people who lost their lives in custody that we are unaware of.”

Civilian Casualties

Restricted Israeli data shows that the vast majority of incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza who died in detention were ordinary citizens, per a related examination.

During May of 2024, a military intelligence database monitoring all fighters in Gaza, a registry of in excess of 47,000 identified persons, recorded just 21 fatalities in confinement. By that date, 65 individuals from Palestine from Gaza had died in prison.

Detention Conditions

Physical violence, mistreatment, and additional maltreatment of detainees from Palestine is now standard practice across Israel’s detention facilities over the duration of conflict. Senior officials have publicly acknowledged starvation rations and an subterranean prison confining Palestinian individuals who never see daylight.

Present and past inmates and insiders from the armed services have all alleged systemic violations of international law.

Organized Maltreatment

The institutionalised cruelty occurred alongside a troubling surge in fatalities registered across at least 12 prison sites in Israel. Over ten years before the war, there were usually a couple casualties a year.

“This does not represent merely an isolated incident occasionally. It is widespread and it is likely to persist,” an official commented, partially because there is a environment of almost complete immunity for killing and mistreating Palestinian individuals.

Only a single instance of beating detainees has come to trial, with the soldier sentenced to 210 days. An effort to try others over a severe beating featuring assault led to public rallies and the arrest of Israel’s senior defense attorney, with the accused individuals now insisting that charges against them be withdrawn.

No Legal Action

“Despite this mass number of casualties, over two years no one has been detained,” the representative stated. “There are no charges over any killing.

“During the time these practices remain in effect, every Palestinian in confinement is at peril, also the physically well individuals, even the young ones who have no underlying conditions.”

Notable Incidents

Some deaths in custody have been high profile, including a 50-year-old healthcare leader who perished in prison after a third of a year in detention.

A detainee held with the victim reported that he was brought to the courtyard by guards immediately preceding his death, clearly wounded and naked from the hips downward. His body has not been repatriated to Gaza.

Additional detainees who died in detention in Israel are unidentified. Detention administrators and armed services provided investigators with the figure of deaths in confinement, and basic additional information for example the location where they perished, but without the inmates’ personal details.

Recognition Difficulties

In 21 cases, mostly people from Gaza, analysts were not able to connect the minimal data provided by officials to a casualty recorded by advocacy bodies, via accounts from released detainees or reporting in the media.

The prisoners’ relatives could be unaware about their relatives’ casualties also, as Israel has impeded efforts to track detainees it is detaining. Over half a year at the outset of the war, the defense forces refused to provide essential data about the whereabouts of many of persons detained in Gaza, practically implementing a policy of involuntary missing persons, per the rights monitoring body.

Restricted Access

From May 2024, government bodies have created an digital correspondence for inquiries about Palestinian individuals from Gaza, but this has provided only a partial and limited betterment. Analysts noted|observed|commented on